Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of our Fathers #1Review

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Cap and Panther meet for the first time in the days of WWII.

By Jesse Schedeen

A lot of new readers tend to equate Black Panther with Batman because they essentially share the same silhouette. And while the two are far different characters, they do share certain similarities beyond the purely superficial. Like Bats, Panther is a master tactician who has 14 different strategies to overcome any opponent. He's built a career out of making his fellow heroes look like chumps. When Reginald Hudlin debuted Black Panther Vol. 4 in 2005, the first thing he did to establish T'Challa's supremacy was revisit the first battle between Captain America and T'Challa's grandfather. Hudlin has now come full circle, as that battle and its fallout form the basis of Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of our Fathers.

Once again, this mini-series stars a younger, greener Steve Rogers and T'Challa's grandfather. But rather than focusing too heavily on either hero, the script centers itself on the exploits of Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos. More specifically, it places Gabe Jones in the lead role. After having their first meeting with Cap, the Howling Commandos and the Star-Spangled Avenger are dispatched to Africa to prevent the Nazis from enslaving the locals and stealing their vibranium. But does a country which has never been invaded really need the help of a few American soldiers?

Hudlin doesn't shy the script away from racial tensions, though he attacks the theme of race relations in a familiarly heavy-handed way. If any Marvel book is the place for this sort of thing, it's Black Panther. But a little subtlety can go a long way. It was downright painful to read Gabe's astonishment that Cap would be willing to share a fork with him. And naturally, the Nazi villains can't make it through the issue without voicing their disgust at the thought that Jesse Owens dominated them at the Olympics. Little bits like these are awkward to read and tend to detract from what is really a decent script. I can count on one hand the number of issues of Hudlin's Panther run I genuinely enjoyed and still have enough free fingers to hold a fork. The same heavy-handed approach we see in the racial elements of the story here applied to nearly all facets of his writing in that series. Here, Hudlin achieves a more natural voice for his characters. Dialogue doesn't come across as forced or hackneyed. He channels the full foreboding nature of the Wakandan warriors without going out of his way to diminish the other characters. His villains are reasonably well-defined inasmuch as comic book Nazis ever have depth.

Hudlin manages to craft a fairly entertaining throwback to the old Howling Commandos comics. As mentioned, he tends to keep Cap and Panther at arms length throughout the issue, particularly when it comes to the latter. I approve of his selection of Gabe as the narrative voice. I can only hope the more awkward segments seen in this issue don't continue to crop up in future installments. I also hope to see Hudlin throw a few kinks into the storyline to make things a bit more interesting. As the story stands right now, there's no reason to assume Cap and Panther won't merely dropkick the Nazis back to Germany once they finish rolling in the dirt. Given that there are still five issues to go in the story, I have to assume Hudlin has more planned than is apparent up front.

Denys Cowan is an interesting choice as artist for the series. I adore Cowan's work on Denny O'Neil's Question series. Cowan's more recent projects, however, have left me feeling ambivalent. Like so many top-tier artists before him, Cowan has grown more extreme and stylized in his work as time has progressed. Put simply, there are too many damn lines in his figure work. Characters are rendered with an unnecessary aura of harshness because of the needless jagged lines and scratches of ink that cover their bodies. Cowan's anatomy can also veer towards the extreme side. More than once Cap looks to be doing his best impression of a Cardassian from Star Trek with the way the tendons and arteries of his neck jut out. When glancing at the cover, one might get the impression John Romita Jr. handled this issue. At his best, Cowan is capable of that level of draftsmanship and storytelling. And while the energy is certainly there in spades in this comic, the restraint is not.

Hudlin seems to be much more in his element with this version of Black Panther, and the story greatly benefits as a result. Sadly, whereas the art was usually the saving grace of Hudlin's past Panther stories, here it proves to be the book's worst enemy. I think Panther fans will be pleased with this take on the first meeting of two Marvel icons, but the series can still do better for itself.